


Death Still Takes

by Coffee_Scribbles



Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, MarkiplierGAME - Fandom, Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF, youtube - Fandom
Genre: (Eventually at least), Amy is worried, Angst, Badass Ethan Nestor, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ethan is a sweet boy, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gaslighting, Grief/Mourning, Holding Hands, Human Experimentation, Hurt Ethan Nestor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Love Triangles, Lying about Grief/Mourning, Mark is not good with feelings, Not actually as intense as the tags make it seem, Other, Pining, Polyamory, References to Torture, Repressed Memories, Returning to Places Of Trauma, Scars, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Trauma, Unethical Experimentation, Wakes & Funerals, Yearning, long flights, secret keeping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28098738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffee_Scribbles/pseuds/Coffee_Scribbles
Summary: Ethan doesn't want to die.He doesn't want it, but it's an inevitability.Because, you see, he may be competing in the entertainment industry, with people he admires, people he trusts-But they are people who've never been chased.They, unlike he, have never felt fear for a period of more than a few hours.He’s on a playing field in a game he has no option but to win. Because if he looses, if he falls out of the spotlight; the darkness will consume him.I.e:  Ethan's past catches up to him in several unexpected ways, and Mark is left to realize that he doesn't know nearly as much about his friend as he thought he did.
Relationships: Amy Nelson/Ethan Nestor, Eventual other ships:, Mark Fischbach/Amy Nelson, Mark Fischbach/Amy Nelson/Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 42
Kudos: 220





	1. Chapter 1

"What do you think, Mark?" Ethan asks, voice ever so slightly too rough. Mark blinks. Ethan is still staring down at his phone, watching the text from his mother as if it may suddenly change itself, or cease to exist.

“…I think flowers would be nice,” Mark says. Amy nods softly. They’re both being so careful. So tentative. Grief feels like an odd emotion to lie about having, but he’s doing it anyway.

Ethan’s chest twinges slightly, and his hands tighten over the phone.

He re-reads the text for a hundredth time. Trying to feel something over it. Over his mother’s little chat bubble, telling him that an old high school friend had died. In a car accident. Or, that was what they were calling it, anyway.

The funeral is on Saturday.

He wonders how he’s supposed to feel about it; all the social cues point to him being sad. Maybe even crying, having a breakdown, if it was bad enough. 

After all, they had paused filming for this. As soon as Mark had read the notification over his shoulder, he’d had Amy cut the cameras.

And so here they were. Still sat behind their two tables, their hands still splattered with tiny specks of paint, larger gobs of the stuff spilled out over the table, only not staining it due to the barrier of newspaper that’d been set down to protect the table from the inevitable mess. It was their first real, actual collaboration since the end of Unus Annus.

He wonders how he’s supposed to be reacting. He doesn’t really know.

He reads the text again. Before slowly setting down his phone on the table; careful to pick a place their ‘acrylic pour challenge’ hadn’t yet spilled all over.

Ethan takes a low breath, as Mark speaks up again, stilted.

“I’m really sorry dude.”

Ethan nods. Not because he really knows why he’s nodding; it feels like he should. He tries to feel something, but emotions just slide off of him. Like rain on a window pane. And here they are, treating him like glass.

It’s an odd thought for Ethan.

Death still takes, even if it's not specific to him.

His friends don’t seem to really notice though. He does stand though, more to wash the paint off his hands than anything else.

They follow him anyway. Watching every motion he makes. Ethan just hollowly follows through, turning on the faucet, scrubbing at his hands under the cold flow of water.

“Are… do you wanna take a break?” Amy offers, in her infinite kindness. She leans slightly against the doorframe.

Mark nods immediately, agreeing without another thought. He keeps close to her, like a lifeline. Like he’s lost at sea and she’s one of those bright orange life preservers. And Ethan…. Ethan’s the storm.

“We can film the rest of this another day,” Mark agrees hastily.

Ethan shrugs, looking up to meet their gazes. They’re wary. But he just smiles at them. He can’t tell if it sets them at ease, or more on edge.

“Nah,” Ethan says, “we’re good to keep going.”

He shuts off the faucet, not really happy with how little paint he’d cleaned off, but not wanting to stand here any longer; Wiping his wet hands off on his sweatpants.

More than anything, he wanted to get back to filming.

Amy and Mark seemed to look at each other as Ethan moved back into the filming room. Mark said something quiet that Ethan didn’t catch. Amy nods to it though. She speaks up as Ethan pulls out his chair.

“Do you… wanna call your mother, at least?”

“No, it’s fine.” He repeats, shaking his head. There was a reason she’d sent it over text, after all.

This wasn’t the first time he’d lost a ‘friend’ from high-school. It wouldn’t be the last either. He wondered if he was getting numb to it; or if it had never really effected him. He used to cry over it, but he was pretty sure that was just because crying was expected of him. He’d been an emotional child.

“Let’s just get back into it.” He claps his hands, daring to smile, just a little.

“Are you sure?” Amy says, she moves closer. He nods, and there’s a long moment of tension. Ethan sits down in his chair.

Mark shuffles closer, and sits down at his chair too.

Awkwardly, Amy steps back behind the camera. After another long moment where Ethan grabs the red solo cup, waiting- she presses the button, and the red recording light clicks on.

Ethan is instantly smiling again, filling the cup with paint.

“I think I’m gonna try something with pink!!” He exclaims, giggling at himself; working to build up the usual hyperactive-energy he has during filming.

It doesn’t help that he can can feel Mark, still stiff, to his side.

“…maybe she could use a call,” Mark says. It’s clear from his posture that he’s indecisive, between finishing the video and trying to get Ethan to talk about this.

“It’ll be fine,” Ethan says, waving his hand. He focuses in on mixing up the pink color. Red and white. Maybe a little too much white, it looks really pale.

“I think… I dunno- I-… Are you sure you wanna keep going?” Mark says, it’s clear from his posture, his sigh, that this is important to him.

Ethan nods. Barely paying any attention as he mixes the colors to get his preferred shade.

He adds in another dollop of red, then a little more white. He’s too focused on his color-mixing to notice the heavy look Mark shoots Amy.

"She'll be okay,” Ethan says. More to himself than anything else. The words that follow are quiet. “After a certain point — you kind of just get used to the people around you dying.” He lets out a short laugh.

“It only took me like, a year.”

The bottle of red spurts out a bubble. It pops, flecks spraying across his hand.

The light in the room freezes. Screeches to a halt as both his friends decipher what Ethan has just said. 

Ethan blinks. He sets down his paint with an impossibly steady hand. Processing that he had just said that, out loud for the world to hear and everything.

“Eth...?”

Mark’s eyes grow into something inky and dark, pupils expanding. His hand is still, like it’s iced over, freezing his own bottle of paint in place.  
  


Ethan stays perfectly still, like a deer convinced that if it hides well enough in the middle of the road, the car isn’t going to see it.  
There are several milliseconds where he barely breathes, his hand clenches, his brain flick’s though ways to exit the room.  
He tenses, like he’s waiting for some kind of time-portal to open up, one he can leap through to tackle his own self to the ground, cover his mouth before he could say anything.

"...I didn't mean to say that out loud,” Ethan finally admits.

The camera is still on, but it’s set away. Amy is staring at him, terrified. Mark is tenser than either had ever seen him.

“Ethan, what-"

Ethan’s hands tremble. He stares at the wall, his face gone flat and cold.

"I didn't say that. That wasn't me. You're both hearing things." Something inside him cringes in fear and guilt, because, wow, that's a fucking _terrible_ thing to say. But the bigger part of him yells at him at how goddamn bad that lie was, and, isn't he supposed to be better at this?

Even masters slip up, though, in a moments of emotion. In moments of falling, of trembling, of shaking, letting an entire ocean cling to their eyelashes. His tears brush his lips with salt, and he reaches his quaking hands up to wipe them away.

The pianist's fingers slip. The mathematician forgets the fifth digit of pi. The liar lets something rotten leave their lips.

And Ethan realizes that everything he can possibly say, even the truth, sounds sour and spoilt and _wrong_.

So he doesn’t speak.  
  
  


“Ethan, I-“  
  


Within the space of a blink, Ethan leaves. A whirl of planned motion and soft fabric and the smell of freshly-washed skin. Mark scrambles out of his chair to chase his friend, but the front door is slamming before he’s able to do more than stand.

Even Ethan’s bag is gone. It was a planned exit, a calculated one.  
  


Paints lay discarded across the table. And Mark and Amy feel discarded too, eyes wide and in ruins. Left behind.

But Ethan Nestor moves too fast. He always has; and nobody can quite keep up. Not with his legs, running from teachers, supposed-to-be friends; running from Them. Not with his arms, pumping in panic as he moves through dark alleyways at night, hoping beyond all hope he won't be the victim of a hate crime tonight, blood seeping down his forearms and trickling along his too-thin fingertips.

Not with his mind, constantly pumping, ideas, entrances, dangers, casualties. Spinning around, placing pieces together in careful dedication to a grand plan that has to work, else he'll be dead. Or everything he’s ever wanted and yearned for would flop belly-up, dead in the water. He doesn't want that solemn knock to ever come to his mother's door. She’s dealt with enough. He’s done enough to her.

He doesn't want to be dead.

He doesn't want it, but it's an inevitability. Because, you see, he’s doing what he does best; he’s entertaining people. And in this field of entertainment, he's competing with people he admires. People he loves with all his heart-

But they are people who've never been chased. They, unlike he, have never felt fear for a period of more than a few hours.

He's competing with people who didn't have to break themselves into pieces to move, and keep moving. He’s on a playing field in a game he has no option but to win. 

Because somewhere along the way, he realized that so long as he was in the spotlight; he wouldn’t be caught. Couldn’t be captured and taken and killed. Not without a fuss. Not without an ‘accident’ larger than a car crash.

And somewhere along the line, when his dreams became reality, he realized that nightmares were dreams too. Only, they had always been real, hadn’t they? He pretended were all in his head; but the injection marks from shadowy figures, the slash marks, the _pain_ , always mapped identically to his scars.

Because somewhere along the way, he realized that so long as he was in the spotlight; he couldn’t be killed. Not without attracting attention that They didn’t want.

And so, he promised himself: _He would become something to survive._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Amy are worried.  
> Ethan is just trying to be normal; but none of them are normal at the best of times.  
> And these are NOT the best of times.

It had been two days.

It hadn’t been two days of radio silence, or two days unreturned phone calls — wondering if Ethan was okay.

And maybe that was the oddest part.

Maybe the oddest part was that Ethan _wasn’t_ ignoring them, or even being snippy or curt. He was just… normal. Painstakingly normal. As if it had never even happened. As if he’d never-

_"She'll be okay,” Ethan had said so quietly; like he knew for sure. But Mark has no clue how he would know. It’s not like he could have prior experience in the matter anyway. Mark wonders if Ethan and the dead person —Ethan’s old friend, a part of him reminds— were really that close. They can’t have been, right? Not if Ethan wasn’t even_ _reacting_ _to their death.  
_

_“Still,” Mark wants to insist, but the word barely manifests at all, only bubbling up as a bereft sigh._

_  
The words that follow are quiet, but unmistakable. And Mark’s unsure if he’ll ever be able to forget them._

_“After a certain point — you kind of just get used to the people around you dying.”_

_Ethan lets out a short laugh, then, just continues mixing his paint._

_“It only took me like, a year.”_

_The bottle of red spurts out a bubble. It pops, flecks spraying across Ethan’s hand._

_Mark notices that Ethan’s knuckles are bruised before the weight of the words really hit him.  
_ _And when they do, the room goes cold. Not like frost or ice; more like getting drenched from the rain, or an unexpectedly tall wave, and being left to shiver._

_  
_ _Ethan blinks only once as Mark watches him. He sets down his paint with an impossibly steady hand. Seeming to only now process his own words._

_  
“Eth...?” Amy whispers. And Mark- Mark feels something entirely new in that moment. Because that look on Ethan’s face…_

Mark sat up from his desk, scrubbing at his eyes, trying to distract himself. He’d been trying to edit, but he’d barely gotten the editing program up and running before he was zoning out, staring off into space. 

Maybe he should get himself a cup of coffee.

Yeah, that sounded nice. Something warm and energizing to help him get through the day.

His mind, however, had different ideas. Because every time he closed his eyes now, all he could see was Ethan’s face, and that- that expression.

See, Mark had always hated the open ocean- but more than that, he hated the idea of storms on the ocean. The inescapable terror of seeing darkness roll across the sky. The vulnerability of sitting in a tiny, dinky little ship among it. Rocking with the force of even the gentlest of tides.

Sitting, still and vulnerable.

  
And in that moment, Mark had realized, watching his close friend —who looked absolutely nothing like Ethan, like the sweet, distractible, ball of energy they’d come to know and love— who looked exactly like that. Somehow, both embodying a fellow traveler, lost on the ocean in the storm; and like the storm itself.  
  


_Because that look on Ethan’s face is like the clouds and darkness and thunder on the cold horizon._

_  
"...I didn't mean to say that out loud,” Ethan had finally admit. Quiet. Too fucking quiet._

_  
Mark wondered if Ethan had even been breathing. The world is so quiet; silent in a way that brought a ringing to his ears._

_The only sign of life from his usually hyperactive friend, is his hand. Tense, clenching like he’s tearing something invisible apart._

_The camera is still on, but it’s set away quickly, shakily. Amy is staring at Ethan. Mark wonders if she sees what he sees, if she can see how helpless and horrifyingly cold Ethan looks- if she can see deeper than that, if she sees the danger there too-_

_“Ethan,” Mark choked out the name, trying not to drown in his own fears, not while his friend needs him, “what-"_

_"I didn't say that.” Ethan’s voice was like thunder and crashing waves. Entirely too cold; but not drenched by fear. More like regret, like he’s made a mistake he can’t take back, and now he’s reaching desperately to forcibly turn back the hands of the clock._

_“That wasn't me. You're both hearing things.”_

_Ethan’s hands are trembling. He stares at the wall, his face gone flat and cold._

_  
And Mark- Mark had no fucking clue what to do about it. He’s lost and tense, and he feels like a giant wave has swept him off the edge of his boat, and into the open ocean. Drowning, barely able to keep his head above the crashing tide._

_Ethan is crying. The tears slip soundlessly down his empty expression. Mark is lost at sea, and a wave crashes over him._

_“Ethan,” Amy mutters, looking just as lost and terrified as Mark feels, “I-“_

_But within the space of a blink, Ethan is gone. Sudden, like a flash of lightning and then; darkness._

_  
Mark stands out of his chair to chase his friend, his limbs heavy and clumsy and- god he needs-_

_The front door is slamming before he’s able to do more than stand._

_  
Paint lays discarded across the table. And Mark and Amy feel discarded too, eyes wide and in ruins. Left behind like a shipwreck at dawn._

_He remembers calling Ethan after that. He remembers the buzz of the ringing phone as Amy tried to reach him. He remembers neither of them getting through. Not for nearly an hour after that.  
_ _He remembers talking to Amy about it; or trying to anyway. But every word felt wrong, and in the end, they decided not to speak._

_  
He remembers Ethan shooting them both a text after that- almost identically timed._

  
‘Hey, sorry for rushing out. Do we still need anything for that video?’

_He blinked at the… the sheer normalcy of it. The odd apology-  
_ _He’d been about to type before Ethan had sent another thing._

  
‘Also look at HIM!!! Tbh i think he wears it better LOL [Beaniebeeps.jpg]’

_Attached was a picture of Spencer, but he had a bright red beanie tucked over his ears. One of Ethan’s no doubt. The pup balancing a treat on his nose, and going adorably cross eyed as he looked at it._

_It brought a smile to Mark’s face instantly. And somehow, that just- slipped them right back into the normal routine._

  
“Are you okay?” The voice startles him, maybe more than it should.

He turns to see Amy, clad in a comfortable pair of pink sweatpants and a t-shirt. Her hair tied up and hands dirtied. She was probably out working on her pottery, then.

He wonders how long she had to’ve been standing there. If how heavily her worry seems to weigh on her, or how tightly she’s leaning against the doorframe is any indicator, it’s safe to say it’s been a minute.

  
“Mark?” Amy asks again, and he has to take a moment to remember her question; shaking his head like an etch-a-sketch to clear it. Realizing he’s been hollowly staring at the coffee machine for a while too.

“I’m fine, sorry,” he mutters, voice a little lower than she means it to be. And then, because he’s never been that good at hiding his feelings from her:

“I’m just thinking about…” he gestures vaguely. Then moves to grab a mug from the cupboards.  
She understands almost instantly.

“Yeah,” she nods thoughtfully, her hand reaches up to her necklace, grasping at the pendant and sliding it across the gold chain; an anxious habit she’d had ever since they’d met. Mark puts his mug under the machine, presses the buttons and waits for it to fill.

“He’s coming over again tomorrow right?” She asks. They’d set it up a week or so ago. For Ethan to come over, just to hang out for a bit. With their hectic schedules, it wasn’t something they got to do all the time.

“Yeah, I think so anyway,” Mark nods. The coffee machine sputters out liquid and steam in the background, filling the room with the warm, sweet, earthy scent.

“It should be nice.”

There’s quiet for a moment; not necessarily uncomfortable, but not awesome either. Mark takes the moment to grab the creamer from the fridge, and the container of sugar. The coffee machine’s gurgling slows.

He turns off the machine and removes his cup.

“Good.” Amy twists her pendant around on it’s chain.  
There’s still a bone-deep set worry in her though; Mark can see it in her eyes, feel it in her stance. 

  
Mark adds creamer to his coffee, the color shifting from near-black to a perfect deep chestnut-caramel color. He adds the sugar.

Because, no matter now oddly normal Ethan’s texts may be, no matter how easily he seems to skim over it all… what happened, it’s- it’s still _not_ normal.

  
He blinks, and _he sees Ethan’s storm-cold expression again. He sees his tears. He sees those bruised knuckles and red paint splattered across them and he feels so much fear. He’s lost and-_

The hot steam from his coffee dances up into the air, and the warm metal spoon clinks against the ceramic mug as he stirs it.

He takes a sip, and the warmth settles in his chest as he swallows. He sighs softly.

“We still need to talk to him,” Amy says softly. There’s no room for argument. 

  
He nods, more a reflex than agreement, but it doesn’t matter.

Ethan would be coming over tomorrow, and they’d tackle everything then.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark isn't great with emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is like 98% FLUFF bc,,,, yeah. But don't worry, there'll be more angst soon >:)
> 
> Also this chapter just SCREAMED EthAmyPlier to me so THATS WHAT IT IS NOW I GUESS! They're so cute tbh

Mark wondered if he really even wanted to know what was going on with Ethan. Any time he tried to bring it up, he always felt like it just… wasn’t the right time, and even when he felt there was a moment where he _should_ ask… the questions always seemed to make him freeze, make his hands shake when he tries to text, or catch in his throat before he can even call.

He wasn’t sure if they’d slipped back to normalcy, just because Ethan was _like that_ , and he was _so good_ at making everything feel okay- or if it was Mark, avoiding it.

He wondered if he was asking out of wanting to know; or guilt, for never actually wanting to ask.

When Ethan comes over, he brings cupcakes.

And it’s such an _Ethan_ thing to do. To apologize for worrying people, even when Mark knows objectively that he’s overreacting.

It was just a sentence, just a few words in an order. And it’s not the strangest, or even the darkest thing he’s heard Ethan say. They’d talked about murdering each other more than once for videos. Gone graphically in depth on it too.  
But this… this wasn’t for the video.

And now, every time Mark tries to think about that, all he feels is the rawness of Ethan’s tone, and then the horrible stormy-chill as he tried to take it all back.

Mark knows the cupcakes are an apology, maybe for the things Ethan hasn’t said. Maybe for the things he has.

But it’s still such an Ethan thing to do; to pay penance for doing something so simple as speaking his mind.

“Earth to Markimoo?” Ethan says, waving a hand in front of his face. Mark blinks, then lets out an unsure chuckle.

“Sorry, spaced out,” Mark says easily. Ethan lets out a laugh, and the sound is just- it’s delightful. It rings like a wind chime caught in a summer breeze, all light and soft and easy.

“That’s my job!! Stop trying to steal my shtick!” Ethan complains in that loud, whiny tone. And Mark can feel the tension fading from his shoulders. He wonders why he felt so worried in the first place-

He blinks. _He sees Ethan’s storm-cold expression again. He sees his tears. He sees-_

Mark stiffens again, and he can tell Ethan notices by the downward tug of his lips; but the younger doesn’t comment. Instead, he shuffles back to the kitchen table, where he set out the cupcakes, and goes fist-deep in the second of the two plastic bags he brought.

“Where’s Amy?” Ethan asked, his voice light and eyes still focused on the bag as he sorts around in it.

The bag crinkles as he ruffles around in it. He pulls out a couple bags of microwavable-popcorn, and-

Ethan finally seems to find what he’s looking for, and pulls it out with a grin.

“I got this for her,” Ethan says. He holds it out for Mark to see.

It’s a tiny golden-retriever Chibi on a gold keychain. It looks remarkably like Henry, right down to the darker shading of his coat and tiny brown eyes. Mark’s hand lifts to touch it, the pad of his finger petting across it’s small, smooth, plastic body. The chain that it’s attached to by it’s back jingles as Ethan’s grip shifts.

Their hands brush, and Ethan’s hands are surprisingly cold. Smooth.

Soft.

Before he can think more about it, Ethan squeezes the toy. It makes soft ‘woof’ing noise, and then the pup’s eyes light up. Literally; it’s like a flashlight directly in his eyes- Mark lets out a startled noise and recoils immediately, taking an over-dramatic step backward and blinking harshly from the light.

“Sorry!! Sorry!” Ethan says, pulling the keychain away as soon as he realizes what he’s done. Mark just lets out a laugh, still blinking away the light spots in his vision.

“Oh jeez, are you okay?!” Ethan asks. He sounds legitimately worried.

So, of course, Mark does what he does best, and confronts an emotional situation using humor.

“I’m blind, I’m _blind_ ,” Mark wails. Scrubbing violently at his eyes and waving his hands.

“I just wanted to show you what it was!!” Ethan says in a high-pitched whine, voice edging on baby-ish.

“You could’ve done that without blinding me!!” Mark exclaims, still doing his best to blink and scrub away the spots in his vision. He can tell Ethan doesn’t think he’s _actually_ hurt anymore, which is good. He lets out a short laugh.

“Where did you get that thing anyway?” He asks rhetorically, “where does anyone get a,” he pauses, trying to find a name for it, “a _noisy flashlight_." He paused, "And _why_.”

“Walmart! And cause it’s cute!!!” Ethan says, bouncing on the balls of his feet, like it’s the best invention since sliced bread.

“ _Surrrree,_ ” Mark says, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. 

Then, when Ethan notices that Mark is still watching him, his joy weakens. His shoulders fall, fractionally. His smile stays, but the light shifts, dimmer.

Mark wishes immediately to take it back- to take everything back. If only to give Ethan back that spark, that energy that suited him so well.

“It does look just like Henry though,” Mark says, the words flying out of his mouth, just something to fill the silence, or the hole in his chest that Ethan’s frown is currently drilling. He tugs a smile into place, holding out a hand.

Ethan passes the keychain over immediately, dropping it into Mark's open palm, then he goes to fiddle mindlessly with the edge of his sleeve. The little plastic dog weighs more than Mark had expected, but that just means it probably wont break as easy.

“It’s… actually really cute,” Mark says, his tone wavering, but landing on honesty.

He looks up at Ethan again, and he’s smiling. Softer, but no less sweet.

He hands back the keychain, and if it feels like the brush of their hands lasts longer than it did before? Well, neither of them are gonna mention it.

“What’re you two so quiet for?” Amy asked suspiciously. Her hands rested up on her hip.

Ethan looks at her, and something about him seems to relax a little; in a way that Mark hadn’t even noticed a tenseness before.

“Just because we’re quiet doesn’t _always_ mean we’re _up to something_ ,” Ethan complains.

“Yeah, sure,” Amy waves, and Ethan smiles at her, “say what you want, but I’ve learned not to trust silence around you two,” Amy says with dramatically narrowed eyes. Then, a gentle laugh.

Amy brushes her hair over her shoulder, and Mark reaches over to smooth a few strands into place.

Amy rolls her eyes at the motion, it’s fond, if exasperate. She pulls him in for a quick kiss, it’s domestic and short. Her lips are soft, and he comes away tasting her cherry chapstick.

He looks over to see Ethan, who’s expression is steady as ever, but suddenly seeming to find the microwave incredibly interesting. 

Mark feels his emotions tangle in his chest, he can try to put a name on them —fondness, love, worry, confusion, _more love_ — but the more he tries the more jumbled they get.

“Now what’s up?” Amy asks, breaking the soft silence they’d fallen into. Her voice is steady, edging on serious. Mark dares to dart her a look, something to tell her that no, they haven’t breached…. _That subject_ , yet.

Mark adds ‘ _guilty_ ’ to the list of emotions currently tying knots out of his heartstrings. 

‘ _I have the whole rest of today to bring it up_ ’, Mark assures himself, not facing the fact that he was still putting it off.

It only slightly works to soothe him.

“Oh!” Ethan says anyway, as if he’s been tugged violently from whatever thoughts had been spiraling in his own head.

He looks at Mark, his grin like conspiracy, and Mark just rolls his eyes; similar to Amy’s fond reaction to him just moments ago.

“Just don’t blind ‘er!” Mark says, smiling. Amy raises her eyebrows almost comically, and Ethan lets out a laugh.

This time, when showing off the small key chain, he turns it away from her eyes before squeezing it. The dog’s eyes light up, and it lets out the same mechanical ‘woof’.

And Amy gasps out a laugh at that, eyes lighting up —similarly to the keychain’s—, positively _delighted_ by the little toy.

Mark feels that knot of emotion swell and pulse in his chest, watching as Ethan’s hands linger, as he pushes the key-chain into her palm.

“I got it for you!” He says cheerily. And Amy smiles so sweetly.

Amy pulls Ethan into a hug, and Mark’s heart feels warm, and full, and _good_.

He chalks it all up to having been worried about Ethan, and being glad to see him okay; and he doesn’t think about it beyond that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan finally lets out some emotions, and gets some good hugs in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's time for the tears babeyyy!!! pop on some sad music and lets go!!

It’s funny how stress presents itself in different people; in different ways.  
On the surface, the entire day had gone swimmingly. Ethan had come over with plenty of snacks in tow, as well as the little keychain that he’d given her, which she had been fiddling with all night.  
But Amy was no stranger to hidden emotions.

She can see the strain in the way Ethan holds his mug of tea, the stiffness of Mark’s shoulders as he sets out pillows and blankets. She can see how they look at each other.

  
And Amy… well, she was trying.  
But here, she was in uncharted lands, with no clue what might make Ethan shut down again. She was walking through a field of landmines, mascaraing as an open field on a sunny day, and she knew it.

  
They’d never had to wring answers out of Ethan. Not like Mark.  
Mark had a stubborn streak a mile wide. Everyone knew that about him. And that translated to emotions too.  
He was good at helping people solve their problems, helping them make the most of themselves. He was even good listener, when it came down to it. But he could also be insensitive at times, and he wasn’t the strongest at intuiting if something was wrong, especially when they were hiding it.

Ethan had always been so in touch with his feelings; it was strange to see him so cold.

  
Amy returns from the kitchen, feet light on the tile, a cold glass of water in hand, only to stop just as she re-entered the living room.She hadn’t heard the words from the kitchen, but she had heard the familiar cut of Mark’s voice through the room.  
And now, she could feel it.  
The silence feels heavy, thick enough that it could probably be cut into blocks and sold as wall insulation. And even though she hadn’t heard Mark’s question, she felt safe in assuming what it’s about.  
Ethan barely reacts, though. He doesn’t even go still, like he had the other day. He just continues to laze on the couch. If Amy weren’t paying such close attention, she may not have even noticed the minuscule way Ethan’s shoulders tensed, then forcibly relaxed. Or how he shifted his posture to be straighter, disguising the movement as leaning to grab his water.

  
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Ethan took a short sip, but the plastic bottle lingers on his lips, like holding it there is reminding him to keep quiet.

  
“It’s okay,” Mark is quick to assure. Because usually Ethan is so scared of disappointing people. Especially his friends; especially _Mark_.  
But here, now, Ethan seems supremely unbothered.  
He’s still holding his bottle close, rough plastic pressing just enough to indent pink lips. He doesn’t drink it though. Staring off into the middle distance without a particular emotion at all.

  
The movie plays in the background. Amy can’t remember what it’s about.

“It did worry us a lot though,” Amy says, her voice catches Mark off guard.

Ethan doesn’t shift at all. His eyes glance toward her, then his head twists; the movement is just a little too smooth.

  
“Well, then it's good that everything’s okay,” Ethan says.  
He smiles, and it’s such a soft expression on him, that Amy almost forgets the war zone she’s in. All she sees in his hazel eyes is warmth; an open field and sunshine. She takes a step forward.

  
“I do still want to know why you shut down like that,” Amy says, firmer. Doing her best not to be swayed. Doing her best to get answers. She needs to know. She can’t let Ethan shut down like that. Not again.

Ethan’s eyes flicker. The welcoming expression shifting. It’s a dark cloud on a bright horizon. A storm in the making; a promise of thunder.

  
“Was…” Amy mutters, letting her voice weaken and wobble, “was it something we did?”

  
Mark looks at her, soft, dark eyes, flicking over to Ethan. Ethan’s expression softens again. He looks vulnerable, here. Awkward and small under the mountain of pillows and soft blankets.

“No…?” Ethan says, like trying to figure out what to say, while he’s speaking.  
He opens his mouth a few times, but his jaw snaps shut each time. Like he’s trying desperately to _not_ say what he’s thinking, and instead trying to figure out what exactly will make them move on quickest.

_‘Answers_ ’ Amy’s mind supplies. ‘ _Answers will make us move on’_.

But Amy also gets the feeling that if Ethan had any to give, he would have already.  
  


Ethan’s jaw clicks shut for the fifth time, and he lets a sharp breath out his nose. He smiles a little, but it looks more like he’s trying to shake off his discomfort.

“S’ just… I just had a bad day,” he resolves, “and I took that out on you guys. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”  
He looks up at them both, eyes flicking back and fourth like a candle-flame, twitching in the breeze, flicking and dimming. Weak and small, caught up in something much larger than he.  
“I’m sorry.” He tacks on. But the apology feels more true than anything else he’s said all day. He smiles a little more; it’s unsure and unsteady, but there.

There’s a long pause after that. Both Amy and Mark trying their best to give Ethan space. To wait it out as best they can to see if Ethan would say anything more.  
But by the jitter of Mark’s knee, she can tell he’s having just as tough a time with it as she is. Ethan is just… still. So still and steady he looks like he’s a video that’s been paused.

Amy moves to his side. Her footsteps are soft against the shag carpet, and she tucks herself close to Ethan. Or, as close as she can, what with him facing her horizontally on the couch, legs crossed and leaning back. And with him watching her like that. With so much… hesitation.  
‘ _Fear’_ , her mind supplies, but she discounts that immediately. Because ‘ _why would Ethan be scared of them? Of anyone? Who did Ethan have to be afraid of?'_

But instead of following that line of logic, Amy resorts to the one thing she figures _has_ to work.

  
She holds out her hand, and waits.

It takes a long second for him to get it, which is even odder, because Ethan loves touch. He lives and thrives off of it. Short hugs and handshakes alike.  
But he’s zoning out again, and Amy has to push her hand out toward him again, jostling him from whatever whirlwind of thoughts are rushing through his head, before Ethan slowly lifts his hand, and places it in hers.  
He’s tense and still. He tries to smile again, but it just looks uncomfortable.  
His hand feels cold, but Amy cradles it gently anyway. His palm is silky smooth from his moisturizer, but still calloused and scarred from years of gymnastics.

It’s soft.

And Ethan looks at her, tilting his head with a tiny ‘um… what?’ And an uncomfortable laugh, in that cute way he does when he’s confused. It’s puppyish and sweet.  
And for a moment Amy doesn’t realize why he’s so confused.

Then she realizes. And her heart quakes and shakes and breaks apart like a building under an earthquake.  
He’s not used to being treated so delicately.

  
Amy tries to come up with the last time they’d had a serious talk like this. A time they’d held each other and hugged without cracking jokes or punching each other’s arms and laughing-  
And she comes up blank.

  
And sure, it’s not like they’re _rough_ with him. Their interactions are always just so… energetic. Their affections were quick and sometimes jokingly-mean. Their hugs always include a harsh slap on the back or ruffle of the hair. And Mark, well Mark has always been one to play rough, and to mock, and to generally be dramatic. But-

Ethan’s not used to being treated delicately. And Amy can’t ignore the hollow feeling in her chest, telling her that she needs to fix that.  
  


  
“Ames...?” Mark’s voice is rough as it comes up from her side. She startles a little at just how close he’s leaning. He’s sitting on the ottoman to her left, having pulled and scooted it closer, and to Ethan’s right.

  
Amy realizes then that she’s been sitting, staring, cupping Ethan’s hand with both of hers, tracing shapes onto her friend’s bruised knuckles for a while.  
‘ _When did he bruise them like this?_ ’ Amy wonders gently. There’s a scab over his middle knuckle, small enough that it had to’ve been healing for a few days at least. She looks up at Ethan, and she almost wants to ask- but Ethan just looks more lost than ever.  
Ethan is unmoving, facing her on the couch. But his brows are drawn together and his lips are pinched like he’s focusing really hard on trying to figure out what she’s doing. What she’s up to.

  
“Sorry,” Amy apologizes, squeezing Ethan’s hand in her grip for a long moment, not quite sure why she feels like she can’t let go, or maybe just that she shouldn’t. Like he’s just going to float away if she lets him.

“I j-just…” she tries, but her own voice betrays her, cracking in the middle. The atmosphere is even heavier than before.  
She can feel Ethan’s worry, his confusion, his gaze flicking weakly between Mark and Amy. And she swallows, and takes a long breath before deciding on what she needs to say.

“I know hearing about someone dying can be tough.” Amy looks up, feeling Ethan’s hand tense.  
“Were you… close?”

“No.”  
The answer he gives is quick and chilled. And Amy _watches_ his expression glaze over with frost.  
She feels viscerally like she’s fucked up, but she doesn’t know how.

  
“We talked in high-school, but no.” Ethan delivers the lines like an unskilled actor reading lines off a script. Clunky and off-put.

  
Mark leans toward Ethan on the side. His warm hand reaching out and pressing onto Ethan’s folded knee. Staying there. Amy watches Ethan’s thigh twitch. His jaw clenches, like he’s biting down on something, or trying really hard not to shove them away.

  
“We weren’t close,” Ethan says again. Like he’s trying to convince himself of it. And she can feel him recoiling, deeper and deeper into himself.

And there’s something he isn’t saying.

  
This is a precipice, Amy realizes.

If she scares Ethan too much, if he takes a step, two steps backwards, if he looses his footing, he’ll be done for. And, Amy realizes with a stutter of her heart, she has no idea how far there might be for him to fall.  
But if she does nothing, he may fall anyway. If she does nothing, there’s nobody to talk him off this edge.  
It’s a warm, sunny cliff-side, in Ethan’s eyes. And one wrong move and everything crumbles.

  
Ethan rolls out his shoulders, but doesn’t move beyond that. It’s something he did every once in a while, when he got a very specific kind of uncomfortable. He’d try to disguise it as straightening his posture, or stretching his arms. But there was tenseness to the action that made it feel… different.  
Ethan didn’t tug his way out of their grip though, and he didn’t do anything else. He just looked at the wall, between Amy and Mark, and breathed.

“Well if you weren’t close,” Mark says. His voice is soft, a low rumble that always feels like home to her.

“Then what’s going on, bud?” Mark asks. And Ethan stays still.

When they’d first met, Amy knew that Ethan would have done anything Mark asked of him. Mark said ‘jump’, and Ethan asked ‘how high’. That was how it worked.

But now? Now Ethan wouldn’t even look at him. At either of them. Wouldn’t answer even this simple question.

  
Amy watched Mark’s hand tense on Ethan’s knee, as they both had to wonder if that change was a good thing or not.

  
“I’m just tired,” Ethan answers eventually, following with a stunted sigh; like he wanted to pour out his feelings, or to fill the silence with them, only to come up shallow.

“Tired, or _tired._ ” Mark asks, because there’s a distinction there. They all know it.

Ethan doesn’t respond. But Mark keeps going.

  
“Being normal tired is good, it means you’re doing stuff,” Mark continues, “but… if you’re _tired_. If you need someone to talk to or…”

“We can help.” Amy says, squeezing Ethan’s hand for a long second, because maybe if she says it often enough, maybe if she punctuates it hard enough, it’ll get through to him. Or it’ll make her feel like she’s not just floundering about. Trying desperately to get Ethan to open up; but feeling so inexperienced in doing so, she can’t tell what’s helping or hurting.

Mark nods, though. So Amy continues.

“But hiding what you’re feeling,” Amy says gently, “acting like nothing happened, isn’t going to work.”

  
“I… I’m not.” Ethan says, the words are stubborn but they come out warm. “I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t feel the need to be so… dramatic.”

He lets out a laugh. “I mean, it’s just a dude.” He tries to justify. Shifting to sit on his knees instead of crossed-legged, curling tighter in on himself, which Mark has to scoot closer for his hand to stay still on Ethan’s leg, a weight to keep him grounded.  
Mark’s thumb rubs at the bone of Ethan’s knee, and Ethan’s breathing strains.

There’s a tear rolling down his cheek. And Ethan uses the hand Amy’s not holding to catch it, pulling the sleeve of his sweatshirt down over his hand.  
  


“I barely remember him,” Ethan says. He looks down at the now slightly darker, damp stain on his sleeve. There’s that coldness in his eyes, but the warm tears break through the surface anyway. It’s like trying to freeze running water; it just doesn’t work.

  
“I just… I barely remember….” He swallows.

  
The Ethan that Amy knows, cries like a tsunami. His sobs are a full-body act. Balled hands smudging the fat tears that drip down his face, rubbing at his eyes and sniffling wetly. Pulling his sleeves over his hands and his legs tight to his chest, curling in on himself if only to have something to hold.  
This Ethan… His expression doesn’t change. His eyes redden only slightly, but the bulbous tears pool, like an ocean clinging to his lashes.

He barely even blinks, and they spill over, more and more. Slipping soundlessly down his expression. Ethan doesn’t try to wipe them away, he just ignores them; like if he pretends they’re not there, he’ll stop _feeling it_.

  
And Amy _knows_ there has got to be so much more going on in Ethan’s head than what he’s saying, but from the fat tears now pluming down his cheeks now, Amy knows only one thing to do.

  
She lets go of his hand. Just for long enough to grab his shoulders, then she pulls him in, tight.  
Ethan shifts away from the corner of the couch he was burying himself into, and pulls himself into her arms.

Amy holds him tightly, tucking his head under her chin and curling him in tight. And in turn, Amy feels the sobs begin to shake Ethan open. Breaking the surface of the coldness. Of whatever grief he’s been holding onto and hiding; and overflowing.

Mark’s hand finds its way into Ethan’s hair, gently stroking it. His low voice whispering that it would all be okay.  
And Amy feels the gentle way that Ethan slowly folds his warm, muscular arms around her. Loose, like he’s waiting for her to change her mind, to get up and leave him.  
But all the while Amy just rubs circles on Ethan’s back and lets him cry.

She’d only realize later that he didn’t actually answer anything- but by the time she’d realize that, she’d wonder if it really mattered.

The truth would come to light soon enough, and for now, she’d just… be here for Ethan.  
And that would be enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little more hurt/comfort :)

There’s a heaviness in Ethan’s chest as he lies there, kind of like if he swallowed something wrong, or maybe this is what it felt like to choke; he didn’t know. It was hard to tell anymore; what was a normal feeling and what was Trauma™.  
He didn’t know how much memory loss was normal for childhood. He wasn’t sure how much was embarrassed repression of his teenage years, just because it was cringey or awkward, and how much could be… something else.  
He didn’t know how many scars he had, from tiny injection marks to pale, almost invisible slash marks he couldn’t explain. Coupled with the splintering ones from the time he laid down on a lightbulb, or the one across his palm from when he broke his hand.

All in all, it was getting harder and harder to tell what was normal and what wasn’t, and it kind of sucked being left in the dark in your own life. Especially when that shit now somehow involved his two closest friends. Because of some weird trauma he was only now realizing. Because they thought he was grieving-

And he's crying.

“Eth,” Amy’s voice is soft, and he can feel the purr of it through her chest.   
He wants to blink up at her and ease her worries. He wants to crack a joke and smile. He wants to make her laugh and her eyes glitter and-.

Ethan does none of those things. He can’t remember how.

“Ethan, I can hear your brain working from here.” Amy’s arms tighten around him for a moment, he tries not to relax even more into the focusing pressure.  
“Please, just stay with me. I…” she stops herself from saying that ‘it will be okay’. He’s thankful for that.  
“I know it feels like nothing is easy; but… grief never is.” She rocks him gently, in her arms. She’s soft, her perfume reminds him of something floral, something sweet. The warmth settles in his chest like a sip of hot tea; it curls around his soul. He tries not to let it be spoiled by his own lies.  
“Just… Talk to me,” she whispers.

Ethan shifts to hide his face so she won’t see his shaky eyes, the tremble in his shoulders probably gives it away, but he’s just not ready to face this. Not yet.  
He knows hiding in her shoulder isn’t something he can do forever, and Mark will be back from making tea soon. And then he’ll have to answer questions and-  
Ethan hates crying, but more than that, he hates crying in front of them. He hates feeling like a child, even when they take care of him. He hates feeling so weak. Like he can’t keep it together on his own- but is it so wrong to want someone else to hold him? Just until his seams stop splitting? Just enough that he doesn’t feel like he’s about to drift away?

He feels Chica’s cold nose nuzzle her head against his leg, and Ethan let out a still rather wet laugh at the feeling. But Amy loosens her arms from around him, enough for him to move.  
He ignores the ache that makes him want to dive right back into her arms. He ignores how heavy Amy’s eyes feel. How his heart is racing like it’s trying to outrun the rest of him.

He idly wonders where it might even go, if it were to succeed. But that question is answered for him as soon as Mark returns, setting down the tea and, without thought, ducking to wraps his arms around Ethan.  
‘Here.’ His heart answers. ‘Right here.’

His head presses tight against his barrel of Mark’s chest. And Ethan can feel his breathing, soft and slow. His ear and cheek heating up from just the absolute warmth that Mark emits.  
He doesn’t speak as Mark lets go. He doesn’t let his hands lift from where they fall.   
He doesn’t trust himself.

The silence lasts a long time. Maybe longer than he should have let it. But Ethan’s throat still feels raw, and their tea is growing cold.

“You should go.” Mark says finally.

Ethan blinks up at him.  
“What?” He hates how his voice croaks.

“To the funeral,” Amy clarifies, because of course they’re on the same page.  
Mark’s knuckles are pale as they squeeze around Amy’s strong fingers.   
“And I agree. You should go,” Amy says.

Ethan’s attention slips slowly back down toward the couch. Amy feels her heart, heavy in her chest.

“I’m sure your mother would want you to,” Mark continues, “And….”  
He leans forward, doing his best to hold Ethan’s gaze.  
“I think…. I think this is all affecting you. Maybe more than you realize.” Mark says.  
“When… when people die, it’s easy to just not deal with it. To just… shut down. To take it out on people sometimes too.”  
There’s experience in Mark’s words. And Amy squeezes her boyfriend’s hand again, tighter.

“I just…” Mark says, “I’m not going to blame you for, well, for any of this. Because it’s not your fault.”

Ethan seems to disagree with that statement, if the guilty furrow of his brow says anything. But that just confuses Amy more. Because why would he feel guilty for someone dying several states away?  
Did he feel like he should be protecting this person? Or was it something else?

Amy was quickly realizing that this problem was providing her with more questions than answers.

But the silence just continues.

Amy goes to speak again when finally, finally Ethan speaks up.

“Okay,” Ethan says. The words weak and small.  
And Amy has to blink heavily as she realizes that he’s agreed.

She isn’t sure why she expected more of a fight. At this point, it’s nearing impossible to tell what’s going on in his head.  
But all Amy can do is lean over and wrap her arms around Ethan again. Hoping somehow that it’ll get through to him; that he’s not alone. That they’re there for him.   
That they love him, more than he can ever know.


	6. Chapter 6

Five days and a lot of video-cramming later, they’re on a flight to Maine.

It’s six hours long, a direct flight; making it a little more pricy, but definitely worth it. One that —Ethan checked the little clock in the top corner of his computer screen to make sure— they were about five and a half hours into.  
Not all that long, compared to other flights he’d been on; but it wasn’t that short either. He hadn’t slept a wink; not even really last night. Too busy packing, then tossing and turning, then double and triple checking his bag and his channel for scheduled posting of his videos.

It wasn’t really necessary. Especially for a trip that was only going to be for two days.  
They’d get there Friday night tonight, leave mid-day Sunday.  
Just another long weekend.

Not that complicated, right? Nothing to be get too anxious about… or at least nothing unusual or new to stress over. He’d had plenty of plane rides back and fourth to far stranger places.

Except… maybe that was a part of why it was so strange.

Ethan had history here. At one point, it had been his home; on some level it still was.

Ethan leaned up against the hull of the plane, glancing out the window and watching the blue sky and thick, fluffy clouds below. He took a long breath in of the stale plane air, and exhaled a nothing but a sigh, doing his best to dull his live-wire nerves.

And yet, no matter how much he tried to convince himself; something about the trip just put him on edge.

Beside him, Ethan could feel Mark stir in his sleep. His head lulled to the side, smushed against his neck pillow, slightly snoring. Amy was next to him in the isle seat. From the angle it was hard to tell if she was actually reading the book in her lap, or if she too had passed out.  
Ethan could feel the deep rumbling of the plane’s engine under his feet. The jostle of the occasional shift in the plane. The propulsion that was tugging the plane forward was slowing, velocity, speed, —subsequent fuel consumption rates blurred in the back of his head, mathematical equations he can’t remember learning. It feels like static.— that all told him that they were going to start descending soon.

Overhead, the peaceful ding of the seat-belt light flicked on.  
Ethan stowed his computer, tucking it into his bag, under his seat. He hadn’t really been using it anyway.  
A soft announcement that they were, in fact, descending, came over the speakers.

Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, scrubbing at them to help with the itch the dry contacts in his eyes, opening them to lean against the hull again, the blur of the sky’s color blanked out as they dipped through the clouds.

The skyline was the same as it always had been. A smattering of tall, dark, cubic buildings glistening in the cool sunlight. Taxies and busses, bustling and pumping through the heart of the small city.

A part of Ethan wondered if anyone from his high school still remembered him.  
He was quick to squash that thought process immediately.

He had never been good with nostalgia; it was a dirty liar at the best of times, convincing him that things were better than they’d seemed.

So, with that hollow feeling that centered in his chest, and Ethan immediately lifted his head from the window, and pulled out his phone to distract himself.

He sat up to slide the shade on the window closed, and from behind him he could feel Mark shift.

When Ethan leans back again, Mark is close enough that Ethan could feel his breath. His soft snoring makes the hairs on Ethan’s shoulders raise.

He’s probably forgotten which side Amy’s on, Ethan figures, as Mark unconsciously shifts to lean on him more. He nuzzles into Ethan’s shoulder —which tenses imperceptibly at the gentle way his stubble scratches against his neckline— and mumbles something nonsensical about donkeys. Dreaming as soundly as ever.

Ethan swallows his tenseness.  
It’s just a touch. Not even something invasive or strange. Fuck, they’ve given each other massages. They’ve seen, and painted on, each other, completely naked!

But this is just-  
  
Ethan looks over, scant and bare out of the corner of his eye; and he cant help the warmth that floods his chest, seeing the man so at peace.

It’s so tender. So subconscious and trusting.  
And somewhere in his mind, something curdles. This trust shouldn't be given so freely; not to him.

Amy leans forward from where she’s sitting, camera held up and wide grin on her face. Ethan shoves down all other thoughts and offers her a smile, which quickly turns mischievous as she looks at her sleeping boyfriend.

“Got a sharpie?” Ethan asks. Amy belts out a laugh that she almost forgets to muffle.

“Ethan, _no_ ,” she schools him, wagging her finger toward him like she’s discipline a child who’d said ‘fuck’ in a particularly entertaining way.

Ethan just shrugs his free shoulder, then looks down at the sleeping weight.  
He smiles but otherwise tries to keep the fondness from his expression.

Amy reaches over and brushes a stray curl from his forehead. And Mark doesn’t even stir, just mutters something about waffles and keeps on dreaming. Ethan lets out a tiny laugh of his own at that, maybe because it’s funny, but maybe because it’s easier than confronting any of his other feelings.

“He’s gonna have such a crick in his neck later,” Amy whispers with a giggle, finally pocketing her phone. Ethan hopes that the bad lighting camouflaged at least some of his expression, or that his flushed cheeks could maybe be attributed to wearing his thick, warm Unus Annus hoodie throughout the flight.

“Should we wake him? We are gonna be landing soon,” Ethan says gently, keeping his voice low —he thought he remembered reading some study about it; something about higher tones waking people up easier because instinct and babies crying and blah blah blah— and tries not to focus on the warm, comforting weight that Mark unknowingly provides.

“Nah,” Amy says after a moment of thought. Folding up the book in her lap and stowing it. “He didn’t sleep that well last night anyway,” she says, threading her free hand into Mark’s. He takes her hand on instinct, but nuzzles tighter into Ethan’s shoulder anyway.

“We’ll wake him just before we get off,” Amy says.  
  


Ethan just nods.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for some ~*Foreshadowing*~

Ethan does a few idle stretches while standing next to the baggage claim, trying to work the aches from his muscles before they can form into knots. It’s a small enough airport that there’s only one baggage carousel, which creaks occasionally among the chatter of the room. 

Mark, still rather tired, slumps with an arm around his girlfriend. Never bothering so straighten his mussed up hair of his cloak-brand black sweats, even while complaining about overheating. Amy, in her sensible t-shirt, leggings and cardigan, just smiles at him. She quips at him for always having to wear his _brand_ , and-

  
Ethan’s brain fades the rest of the words out. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t taken his meds; maybe it’s just because he’s heard this story before. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Maybe it’s the steady crawl that Ethan can feel under his skin. Prickling in the cool, stale air.  
Eyes on him, a stranger’s gaze.

It takes a long moment of carefully looking around to spot them.

  
A older, greying woman, dressed in a business casual button-up and slacks, is watching him; there’s recognition in her eyes when he locks her gaze.  
It’s not that odd, having a stranger recognize him. A large part of being a public figure, after all, is getting recognized by the public.

But something about it… about her, was unnerving.

She just looked like your average business woman. Short but lean with greying hair and narrowed crows feet. Sure, not a part of his video’s target demographic, but maybe she had a kid who watched his videos. Or maybe he’s blowing everything out of proportion, and she’s not even really looking at him. She’s looking in his vague direction-

The older woman swivels her head, brushing a few strands of grey hair out of her peripherals, like she’s looking for something. When she finds it, or doesn’t-

She smiles, her skin wrinkling as she does, and for the bare second their gazes are fully and entirely locked, Ethan feels something.  
The way she moved; It was surveillant, it was threatening.

It was not something an average civilian did.

Her hands move in deliberate shifts, and Ethan’s brain stutters to pick it up.

Sign language, he realizes.

His confusion must show, because the older woman just smiles from across the way; the same way Amy does when he’s just not picking up on something obvious, or Mark does when he misses something during a video.

  
She doesn’t look away; she looks a his chest-

Ethan realizes he’s holding a closed fist to his chest, moving it in clockwise circles.

He doesn’t remember ever learning sign language —it’s probably just random stuff he’s picked up on over the years—, but he does know how to give an apology.

‘ _Sorry_. _’_ He signs tenderly.

She shakes her head, smiling; it’s too fond for a stranger. Ethan watches her closely, partially to see if she signs anything else he knows- and partially because he feels like he should know her. She feels familiar in a way he’s never felt before, and he doesn’t know why it aches in his chest so badly.  
She faintly reminds him of a teacher from first grade, or maybe a gymnastics coach from when he was really young. Someone he knew and forgot.

The strange woman holds her arm perpendicular to her body, palm up, then brings it in toward her waist, right at her belt.

 _  
‘Welcome’_.

She brings her fingers and thumb together, placing them near the side of her mouth, then bumped up to just under her ear, touching there again.

  
‘ _Home_ ’.

_‘Welcome home._ ’

Ethan can’t fight his smile at that. It feels… nice, communicating this way. He doesn’t really understand why.

He lifts a flat hand, fingers to his chin, then extends it away.

‘ _Thank you_.’

She nods. For a moment she pauses, thinking, maybe. She holds her hand out straight, fingers splayed, using her thumb to tap her chin twice. The sign for ‘ _mother_ ’- but she shakes her head. Like she’s trying to shake that thought out of existence.

She brings her pointer finger to her chest. Pointing at herself.  
She places the finger to her chin, then points directly at him.  
  
It takes Ethan a moment to piece together the meaning.

‘ _I missed you_.’

Ethan can feel his entire body soften, and it bothers him, faintly, that he still doesn’t know why.

She pauses a moment, then gestures to the room, to everywhere- then repeats the motion. Finger to her chin, then pointing to him.

‘ _Everyone missed you_.’ Or maybe, _'this place missed you.'_

Ethan is at a loss for words —which shouldn’t be a problem, what with _signing_ and all— and it seems his inability with language _does_ seem to extend to Sign, which is _fuckin’ dandy_.

  
Ethan decides to go with what he knows; with what he feels. He softens his expression as much as possible, trying to express all the odd longing and confusion and strangeness he feels through just his eyes-  
He closes his hand in a fist, and goes in a clockwise circle.

  
‘ _I’m sorry._ ’

He doesn’t get the chance to read the old woman’s reaction to that, as somebody taps his shoulder-

  
Ethan twists on his heel, startling surprisingly little when he comes face to far-too-close face with Amy. Her soft chestnut hair framing her face, lashes fluttering against the slightly-too-bright airport lighting.

“Ethan?” She asks. Ethan watches her eyes, her sweet gaze that watches him so carefully. Like he might break at any second. Fall apart and shatter like fine china.

He instinctually takes a short step backward, putting a little space between them.  
She doesn’t seem to notice.

Ethan doesn’t speak. His eyes quickly search for Mark, realizing that he’s busy trying to tug his and Amy’s shared suitcase off the rusty carousel.

“I didn’t know you knew sign language,” Amy says amicably. She’s never been one to pussyfoot around things. She does fiddle with the edge of her thin cotton cardigan, though.

“I, er,” he swallows. He can’t exactly say he _doesn’t_ know how, not after she’s presumably _seen him_ in action.

“I’m not very good at it,” he settles on.

“Still, it’s cool,” Amy says sweetly, then, curiously adds: “Who were you signing too?”

“Uh, an old neighbor,” he says, maybe slightly too quickly. Because saying ‘ _I don’t know_ ’ would _definitely_ be weirder.

It doesn’t matter, because Mark is there a second later with his and Amy’s formerly stowed bag. Ethan hadn’t brought one; his carry on had been more than enough room.

They weren’t going to be here long anyway.

Mark and Amy are talking about something. Ethan tries really hard to focus on it; some debate about if they should head to Ethan’s mother’s place first, since that’s where they’d be staying, or if they should get dinner.  
Or, Amy suggests quickly, if they should get dinner _with_ Ethan’s mom, since they were guests and it seemed polite-

Ethan looks back toward where that strange, old woman was.

A part of him —the same part that has always been a sucker for the fantastical and the cinematic— expects to look back and find she’s disappeared. That he’d just imagined the whole thing- but instead, she’s still there.

Sanding, still in line for her security check. Facing front, chatting with one of the airport employees with an even expression.

If she feels his stare, she doesn’t do anything about it.  
And soon enough, they're gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan yearns, just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes ppl's love language is ‘taking sneaky photos of u lookin cute’, and that’s ok.

Their luggage rattles along with their footsteps, clicking through the double doors, a steady buzz of rubber wheels along rough linoleum flooring as they exit into the world.  
And, after living in LA for so long, it’s weird to step out and feel, _cold_.

  
The fresh chill in the air and the bright shift to the leaves are a crisp reminder of autumn. And Ethan’s instinctual response, as a child of the north, is to take a deep breath and exhale, seeing if he can make his breath fog.

  
“Oh jeez," Amy mutters, tugging her thin black cardigan tight against her t-shirt, "it’s colder than I thought it’d be.”   
Mark immediately wraps an arm around her, she nuzzles into his warmth. Mark says something about ‘ _wishing she had a cloak-brand sweatshirt now, huh?_ ’. Amy elbows him in the ribs, but she laughs anyway, even while she curses him out.

His arm stays wrapped around her the whole time. And Ethan just rolls his eyes at their antics.

A nearby set of trees rustle in the breeze, their autumnal leaves dancing together in a shift of warm reds and oranges.

“I told ya, seasons actually exist in Maine, it’s buck wild,” Ethan says. Then, remembering- he makes a quick detour by a bench, and tugging his carry-on up onto it.   
Mark and Amy both pause, waiting up for him before they continued toward the car rental place across the street.

The zipper slips open on the front pocket, and with a quick hand, Ethan pulls out a pastel blue, soft-boy hoodie. It’s rumpled, and he almost tugs his computer chord out with it, having to gracelessly untangle sleeves and wires, but he hands it over easy enough.

  
Amy ducks out from under Mark’s arm to take the sweater.

“Wow, _Ethan’s_ the prepared one. Never thought I’d see the day,” Mark jibes affectionately.

Ethan pouts dramatically, almost forgetting to re-zip the pocket before he put it back on the ground.

“Hey!” He stamps down his foot, twisting toward Mark. “I can be competent when I want to be.”

“Eth, you’re barely competent when you _need_ to be.” He laughs, and it feels good to have the normalcy back, even if it was still careful. After what Ethan has been mentally calling ‘ _the incident_ ’, Mark and Amy both had rather long spells of treating him… well, like he was something fragile. Like he was pressurized. Rigged to break.  
And, of course, that’s not _gone_ … But it has lessened, over time.

His smile prickles as a gust of cool wind dances past them, making Amy and Mark’s hair dance around their faces as they make their way across the street.   
A few stray, dry leaves skitter across the street.

“I do have to say though, this is, like, _really_ comfy,” Amy says, nuzzling into the slightly-too-big sweatshirt. She tugs the sleeves over her hands, fishing around in her leggings-pocket for her phone. She smiles as she checks her text-updates from the boarding-kennel they’d set Chica, Henry and Spencer up at; apparently they’d sent her a photo of the pups playing together.

Ethan kind of wishes he had a camera, just for the way Amy smiles, twisting her fingers in the soft blue fabric just enough to screenshot the photo.

It’s really cute.

He looks over at Mark and sees him slowing his pace, taking out his phone incredibly slowly- and Ethan just grins, executing a quick plan to distract Amy so Mark could get a good picture of her; full sweater-paw mode.

“We really have the brand trifecta here, huh Ames,” Ethan says, slowing his steps a little and giggling.  
She pockets her phone again and nods at him. Unconsciously falling into a slower pace.

“Cloak, Soft-boy and Unus Annus,” Ethan says, “all together we make one emo-looking squad.”

Amy laughs, and the sound makes Ethan grin just a little bit more.

“It’s definitely a look,” she agrees.  
A patch of fading sunlight from between the buildings catches her in a honeyed tone, and-

Ethan hears the iPhone shutter go off, and Mark curses.  
Ethan immediately breaks the act. He laughs especially hard when Amy’s expression visibly flickers through her emotions —fondness, confusion, realization, betrayal, then _love_ , and annoyance— so quick he gets whiplash just watching her eyes.

“You two and your schemes I swear to christ,” Amy says, rolling her eyes- but she doesn’t demand that they delete the photo, so that’s a definite plus.

“This is why I don’t trust silence around you two. I can’t stop paying attention for _five seconds_ -“

“But it was just a picture Ammyyyyy!!” Ethan says with a puppy-dog pout. Mark watches how easily Amy melts at that, and lets out a booming laugh when Amy crosses her arms at him.

“Besides, you look good in it!”

“Wait, does that mean I’m an official soft boy model now?” Amy asks, grinning at Ethan. Mark immediately gawks.

“Hey! What happened to brand-loyalty!” He exclaims, gesturing to the Cloak brand-mark on his chest.   
The glass door in front of them glints against the setting sun. He opens it for her anyway.

“Well maybe Cloak should’ve done somethin’ when they got the chance,” she says, poking Mark in the chest, then shuffling closer to Ethan.   
Partially to get through the door, and partially to, very dramatically and exaggeratedly, grab his hand and entwine their fingers.  
Ethan takes a short breath of the thickly, almost rubber-scented air that is so unique to car places like this, and tightens his grip on hers; feeling just how cold her hands had been.

  
“Quick, play ‘mr. steal yo girl’,” Amy stage whispers to Ethan, who makes both his friends absolutely _loose it_ as he begins his terrible, beat-boxing cover of the song.

It might embarrass him in front of the girl working the car-rental counter, but Ethan doesn’t particularly care.  
These days, Ethan knew shame as barely a passerby- a stranger he had no intention of talking to further, thank you very much.

  
The car rental process is a lot less lengthy than Ethan had expected. Maybe that’s just because Mark is doing all the actual work; standing, chatting with the woman at front and signing off on all the paperwork. While Ethan is just left sitting in one of the squeaky, barely-padded waiting room chairs along the far, beige wall. Keeping an eye on their luggage. Amy sits beside him. Ethan busy’s himself with his phone, scrolling mindlessly; the other hand still tangled in hers. Pale skin slowly warming under the weight of his touch.

  
His knee jostles, rhythmically tapping his heel on the dirty linoleum floor.   
He scrolls through twitter, and when that gets boring he looks back around the room. He watches the curve of Mark’s spine as he leans over the counter, the twitch of his shoulder-blade as he scrawls his signature.  
From his periphery, he watches Amy watch Mark. Watches the soft way her lips quirk up and the way her shoulders soften, like just being in his sight-line calmed her.

Mark quips something to the clerk that Ethan doesn’t hear, too busy trying not to read the lines and poems smudged between Amy's freckles on her crinkled-paper cheeks. Trying not to drink in the ambrosia of warm, sweet, molten chocolate eyes.

  
His heart aches in his chest.

Ethan scrunches his eyes closed as tight as possible, pulling his hand from Amy’s.   
He cant tell if she even notices.

He needs to sleep soon. He scrubs at his eyes, blinking harshly when his contacts rub into the dryness.   
He’s just sleep deprived. And that’s why he’s thinking like this.

“Tired?” Amy asks, voice sweet and thick like golden honey, it sticks inside his head and melts over him.

Ethan doesn’t look at her. He can’t be sure he’ll be able to look away.

Instead, he hums and nods, not trusting his voice to say actual words. He's never been good at those anyway.

So Ethan lets the feeling of their friendship —just friendship, which has always been enough for him— lull his heart to a pace that’s closer to a heart attack than peaceful slumber-

He slumps a little lower into his seat.  
And Ethan breathes; like the flatline on a heart monitor. Steady and simple.


End file.
